American Standard Companies, Inc. (NYSE: ASD) is a global provider of air conditioning systems and services, bath & kitchen products and vehicle control systems.

A S&P 500 and Fortune 500 listed company with 2004 sales exceeding 9.5 billion United States dollars, American Standard Companies offers:

• Bathroom and kitchen fixtures and faucets/taps, sold under such brands as American Standard, Ideal Standard and Armitage Shanks
• Air conditioning systems and services, sold under the Trane and American Standard brands.
• Electronic braking, stability, suspension and transmission control systems, sold under the WABCO name, for heavy commercial vehicles.

History

American Standard traces its roots back to 1872, when John B. Pierce opened a tinware shop in Ware, Massachusetts, USA. With the business skills he forged in this shop, he would later found the Pierce Steam Heating Company, one of three companies that would merge in 1892 to become the American Radiator Company.

In 1929, the American Radiator Company merged with The Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company (founded 1875). Products from the combined company could be found in about half of the homes in the U.S. and Europe For the next 18 years, the business was known as the American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corporation.

By 1948, people had informally shortened the name of the company to "American-Standard", so the company began to refer to itself by that name.

In 1968, WABCO joined the American Standard family of companies. That same year, American Standard dropped the hyphen from its name.

Trane joined the American Standard family of companies in 1984.

In 1999, American Standard purchased control of the U.K. based Armitage Shanks and Ceramica Dolomite of Italy from Blue Circle Industries for 430 million United States dollars.